How home, any home, used to feel when she was there.
He looked around the empty kitchen, and just now, in this one special moment, it didn’t feel empty. It felt … right, so right that time stopped and he fell silent and motionless, listening, sensing, almost expecting her to come through the archway into the kitchen with a little item on her mind: news of the day, who’d called, whether she liked the cut of her new costume, where the camera might be so she could capture the fall colors.
Slowly, as if approaching a timid animal, he rose from his chair and moved by careful steps toward the kitchen, wanting to walk into that sense of her presence, that deep and wondrous something that had settled in the room. Mandy?
She wanted to go through that gate and up that driveway. She wanted to go inside that big, beautiful house. Maybe it washeaven. Maybe the answers to all that had befallen her would fall together if she could only go there.
She smelled something smoky, like burning leaves on the slow, cool breeze.
The telephone rang, and against the silence of the house its warble was jarringly loud and obnoxious. Dane instantly resented the interruption … but wait.The rings came in pairs. It was the phone down at the gate.
What if it was she?
Mandy?
No! The, the girl, you know, the girl I met today… the …
Maybe youshould call Kessler …
He stopped in midthought, hand on his face. Oh, brother.Not only was he being ridiculous, he was also arguing with himself.
And the phone was still ringing.
He picked it up. “Hello?”
She was back in her room, so suddenly she stumbled and dropped against the bed. The walls were back, the warmth of the house enveloped her, the light from the bedside lamp made her squint.
“Hello?”
He could hear the sound of the outdoors coming through the phone from the gate intercom, but nobody answered.
“Hello?”
He hung up. Weird coincidence. If it happened again, he’d have to have the gate system checked. But who would he call to do that? Shirley would know, he’d have to tell her if he remembered, maybe he should write it down, maybe he should call Kessler, but the moving van was coming tomorrow so maybe he’d better open that gate and leave it open. Was there a way to get a truck down to the barn to stash all that magic stuff? Should he worry about protecting the floors? Did he want any more coffee? …
A zillion little realities tore him away from the moment, whatever it was. He sat once again at the table in the big, dead-quiet, empty kitchen and stared at the words on his computer. Maybe he should make a list of everything that needed to be done. Good idea. He opened a new file and tapped in the heading: Things to Do.
Yes, everything felt normal again. Whoopee.
Hallucinations, Eloise thought. That was something Bernadette and Karla asked her about. Did she ever have any hallucinations or delusions?
Well, duh …
She sank to the floor, her back against the bed, the tennis ball on the floor beside her. She absentmindedly rolled the tennis ball under her palm, scanned the walls around her, the dresser, the nightstand, the lamp, and the bed, all solid and really there, and then she sighed.
Well, yeah, sure, she was crazy. Not that she’d had much doubt about it, but finally, sitting on the floor in a cozy little room where she was safe, she accepted it, and without fear. She was a little surprised how calm she was, but crying and freaking out were behind her, an old debt she’d already paid to this problem. There was no point to them now.
She made the tennis ball land on the tip of her finger and spin there, perfectly balanced, until she let it stop.
chapter
13
Adigital photograph of the Gypsy Girl popped up on the computer screen. She was hurrying up a sidewalk in a downtown district, one hand clutching a sweater closely about her and the other toying with a wool hat she was wearing. She was looking away from the street and her face was not visible.
“Yeah, I’d say she’s hiding her face,” said a male voice from the computer. “Look at 23.”
Stone tapped the right arrow key until Gypsy Girl 23 scrolled onto the screen. This photo was zoomed in closer. The girl was looking down, her profile mostly obscured by her street side hand. She was yanking a scarf out from under the wool cap.
“Most of the shots show the same behavior,” said Stone, speaking to the computer.
“Wonder what he told her.”
Mortimer, binoculars in hand, divided his attention between the satellite conversation in the farm house and the Collins ranch house across the valley where a moving van had finally arrived. As two movers wearing back braces muscled a sofa from the van through the front door, he glanced over at the computer. Stone had pressed the right arrow key and scrolled number 24 from offscreen to center. Now the girl’s eyes and nose were visible, but the makeup still disguised her.
“Whatever it was, it ruined her day. She got out of there,” Stone remarked.
“Hoping no one would see her,” said the voice. “Not too friendly an encounter.”
“He did give her the hat and the sweater,” Stone said.
“And a tip,” said Mortimer.
“And she’s a magician,” said the voice on the computer, “which definitely makes her a person of interest. But was there any indication that they knew each other? Remember who we’re talking about here.”
“None that we could see,” said Stone. “I think he was just being generous to a busker.”
“How old would you say she was?”
“Hard to tell. Twenties, thirties. But what if … ?” Stone and Mortimer looked at each other, and Stone went ahead. “If this is the subject, can she be young enough not to know who he is?”
“What if she hasn’t met him yet?” asked Mortimer.
“ Thatyoung?” the voice said. There was a long silence followed by a muttered “Incredible.”
“Sir?” Stone inquired.
“Parmenter would have to rework the protocol … see if anything matches. This is way beyond our projections …” Another pause, and then the voice commented, “But if she hasn’t even met him yet, we’d be downright lucky, wouldn’t we?”
Splosh! Eloise dipped the long-handled window mop in the bucket of soapy water, then soaped and squeegeed the front window of the Real Life Ministries Thrift Store. Only one more pane to go, and then she could move on to sorting out the donations for the day, price-tagging and hanging up the new clothes, and making sure the children’s toys were arranged on the shelves by age group.
The job was fun. Mia and the others were great to work with, and it was a sweet arrangement: girls from the halfway house—today that meant herself and Darci the former jailbird—put in hours at the thrift store, and in exchange the thrift store helped meet the needs of the halfway house with clothing, food, and whatever else might come through the donation door that was useful. So Eloise didn’t earn dollars, she earned safety, well-being, and time to figure things out. Such a deal!
She squeegeed the last window, then stopped to look at the girl in the glass looking back at her with clear, expressive eyes. The girl was still a bit of a hobo, she supposed, still a little lost in a strange world and working through some heavy sadness besides, but she was getting there; she was digging her way out. She was getting to know herself, settling on those things about her that were true and likable no matter what world she thought she was living in. She had friends, and that made her world real enough to touch with her heart, and that made all the difference. She was wearing clothes of her own choosing: a warm jacket she’d earned with her labors and the wool cap the mysterious man on the street had given her. Before long, she hoped, she would find a way to actually make some money and pay for the things she needed.